


The Sort Of Great Outdoors

by orphan_account



Category: Adam Levine (Musician), Blake Shelton (Musician), The Voice (US) RPF
Genre: M/M, Shevine, tumblr prompt fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 21:39:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4321722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam doesn't mind that his Okie is a huntin', fishin' redneck...but he can keep up with Blake in the great outdoors?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sort Of Great Outdoors

**Author's Note:**

> This story originally appeared as "City Boy, Country Boy", written by LiterallyMare. I am now reposting it under the name of MimiRedCrow, after my stories were orphaned without my consent in May of 2014. If you have any questions or concerns about this, feel free to contact me with them. I am very thankful to AO3 for letting me repost and reclaim the stories I wrote and repost them under new titles.

"I was thinking..." Blake drawled the words out carefully, a little too carefully for Adam's taste. Usually when he put things like that, he was either going to say something life changing, like a declaration of love, or something totally stupid, like suggesting they try to remove the stump of a fallen tree in Adam's front yard by themselves by tying said stump to the bumper of Blake's LA rental truck.

Which the Okie now owned, since the rental company had a fit about the ripped off bumper and broken back window. And to Blake's credit, the stump WAS gone and it had only cost Adam a twelve pack of beer and a pizza. Plus he got to watch Blake get all sweaty and country boy, which secretly turned him on. 

"Did it hurt?" Adam teased him with a little smirk. 

"Shut up." Blake scowled at him. "What I was tryin' to say is that...things are going good, don't you think? Between us, I mean?"

A little smile crossed Adam's face and he ducked his head a little in that way he always did when he was feeling a bit shy about something. Good was an understatement. The last season of their show, they'd gone into hiatus knowing there was something going on between them that was a bit more than a bromance but with no clue what to do about it. That problem resolved itself the moment they got together for the current season. It was kind of terrifying, but Adam honestly couldn't be happier to finally be able to express how he felt about his country-fried co-star. 

"It's been great," He said sincerely, a touch of worry darkening his hazel eyes. "Is something wrong?" 

Blake laughed a little and shook his head. "No, no. Don't worry so damn much, Adam. I was just going to say, I was thinking maybe you'd like to take a trip back to Oklahoma with me this weekend. It seems like we're spendin' all our time in LA, and I want to show you how I live. I think that's important."

"Sure." Adam nodded. "I've been there before, remember? Beer pong?" 

"How I could forget you ending the game by taking the light out with the ball?" He chuckled and shook his head. "But I mean, what I had in mind was spending some time in the great outdoors. It's the last weekend of the hunting season. And believe it or not, there's some good fishing this time of year too." 

Adam knew Blake hunted and he didn't mind one bit. Part of loving someone was accepting all of that person, and you sometimes had to nod and amuse them about things they like that you didn't. The deer mounts in the house didn't even bother him. But he wasn't so sure about going out into the woods and shooting a deer himself. 

"I've never been hunting before," He finally said. "I've been fishing a couple of times...I hope you plan on bringing beer and food." 

"Is there any other way to fish?" Blake smirked and nodded. "But you can shoot, so hunting isn't that much harder. I'll show you the ropes. It'll be great." 

"Ten minute warning..." One of the production assistants poked their head in the room. "Time to get back to the set." 

"Yeah..." Adam echoed when the man was gone. "Great."

Forty eight hours later he found himself waking up in Blake's huge bed in his Oklahoma house. It took him a moment to remember where he was, and then to realize Blake had already gotten up. When he sat up and rubbed his face, he could smell something cooking. Stretching slightly, he grabbed his PJ bottoms off the floor and tugged them on then padded his way barefoot into the kitchen. 

Blake was standing at the stove in a t-shirt and his own flannel PJ bottoms, concentrating on the frying pan in front of him where bacon was sizzling. It smelled great and Adam was glad he'd never caught onto keeping Kosher. Usually he tried to eat healthy, but this was a vacation of sorts and he'd been making Blake eat better too, so they'd both earned four days of transfats and butter. 

"Morning," Adam greeted him, wrapping his arms around Blake's waist from behind. "That looks good." 

Blake turned and placed a light kiss on Adam's temple. "I'm makin' a real country breakfast..bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy, coffee. We'll need it if we're going to head out afterwards."

"What's on the agenda for today?" He moved away from his tall cowboy and went to retrieve some plates from the cupboard. 

"I figured we'd do some hunting. Fishing tomorrow. Then we've got two days we can just sort of relax. Maybe put around the compound a bit on the four wheelers, check the fences." 

Adam smirked. "I only thought they did that in westren movies. Check the fences." 

"Well, lots of shit gets blown around. It's Oklahoma.." Blake shrugged and started dishing out the bacon and eggs onto the plates. 

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhklahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plllllaiiiiin." Adam sang teasingly, with an exagerated flourish. 

A moment later he was ducking a biscuit thrown at his head. 

*****

Two hours later, Adam was sitting next to Blake in the Okie's hunting cart. He had expected a bit more walking than this and he figured the engine would scare deer off. That was fine by him, he was still not too sure about this whole hunting thing. Having a partner that did it was one thing, but pulling the trigger yourself was another matter completely. But Blake was totally in the zone and he seemed very happy about life.

"The nice thing about having thirteen hundred acres of your own land is that you don't have to compete with others for the good spots." He was explaining. "So we didn't have to come out here at the ass crack of dawn, though I usually do 'cause that's when they feed. But I thought I would take it easy on you your first time out."

"Gee thanks." He quipped. "Won't the cart scare the deer away?" 

"We'll ditch when we get to the edge of the woods." Blake nodded. "Grab some corn, set up the tree stand." 

"What's the corn for?" Adam frowned. 

Blake chuckled. "What do you think brings the deer?"

"I thought we just tracked them down, you know, looked at footprints and checked for branches snapped off bushes and shit like that." 

Blake pulled the cart up at the edge of the woods and turned it off, giving Adam an incredulous look. "You really are a city boy, aren't you?" He tsked lightly. "Maybe Daniel Boone hunted that way, but we use corn to bait the deer and wait up in a tree stand for them."

"Tree stand?" He blinked. Adam was not known for loving heights. In fact, it was a fear of his, though one he'd been able to keep mostly hidden until a specific situation brought it out. Like having to cart his bony ass up into a tree. "Can't we do it from the ground?" 

A huge smirk crossed Blake's face. "So you're afraid of heights?" 

"Well, no, not really...it's just that...you know...the tree is pretty high...and the ground is so low...and if we fall ON the deer..." 

"Fall on the deer?" He raised an eyebrow. 

"Well, yeah." Adam was totally pulling this out of his ass as he went. "I mean, wouldn't that scare them off?" 

Blake rolled his eyes dramatically. "We'll find a spot with some ground cover. Now...grab a bag of corn and I'll grab one too.." 

Each man took a plastic bag of corn cobs in one arm and took ahold of a rifle case with their free hand. Thankfully Adam did know how to shoot, though his experience had been limited and confined to hand guns. But if he was going to do a whole bunch of stuff he normally would never do, what was one more added to the mix? At least it was a nice day, mild enough for a coat but the mid morning sun still gave off a little warmth.

As they trekked into the woods, Adam noticed that Blake had stopped talking. Probably the whole hunter's stealth thing, so he also fell quiet. He did enjoy hiking and there was something so nice about being out in nature with his best friend. And lover. And partner. His hazel eyes were warm as they watched Blake pick his way down a narrow trail. Even if he would've been doing just about anything else other than this, Adam liked seeing Blake in his element. 

They walked about a half hour before Blake finally stopped and looked around a bit. There was a huge fallen tree about twenty feet away from where he stood and he nodded his approval. "Alright...I think here is good." 

He upended the bag of corn and spread it on the ground. Adam walked over and did the same, looking up at his friend for approval. When it was given, Blake lead the way to the fallen tree. But he wasn't quite done, first he stacked up a bunch of smaller branches in the front of tree to create a blind of sorts. Adam stood back and watched him work, smiling a little when he was done.

"They teach you that in Boy Scouts?" He teased Blake.

"Nah," He smirked back and got behind the fallen tree. "Redneck Scouts." 

"I didn't go to either one of those," Adam admitted as he joined him, opening the case of his rifle. "I do know how to load a rifle, at least." 

Blake grinned. "Don't have to teach you everything, huh?" 

"Oh, there's still plenty of things I want to teach you. We just can't do them out here or we'll get some sort of disgusting rash." 

The Okie smirked as he raised his rifle and poked it between the branches that were hiding them. "There's not a Redneck boy alive who hasn't gotten poision something or other on his dick, I can promise you that." 

Adam made a face. "Well, you managed to kill the mood in one sentence." 

"Good. Now let's try to kill some deer." Blake lifted his finger to his lips to signal it was time to be quiet.

The problem with hunting, of course, besides the actual killing of the deer was that the rest of the time you sat still and were quiet. For the first ten minutes Adam appreciated the beauty of nature. And that was about all his ADHD could tolerate. Soon he was fidgeting and trying desperately to come up with ways to distract himself from the fact they were just sitting there. He really should've brought a book or at least his cellphone so he could play Candy Crush. 

Blake, on the other hand, seemed very content to just sit there and watch the woods around them. He stared out straight, then looked from side to side. He seemed to be hearing and seeing all manner of things Adam did not. Perhaps if he could, this would be a little more entertaining. Instead he was desperately going stir crazy. 

Adam honestly wasn't sure how long they'd been sitting there when Blake tapped him on the shoulder, but it felt like a century. A hundred centuries. Maybe even a thousand centuries. But now in front of them was a beautiful deer, a buck with big, majestic antlers. It was really a beautiful sight to behold. Adam didn't think he'd ever been so close to a wild deer before and he was awed by the creature's majestic nature. 

"You take it." Blake whispered to him, giving him an encouraging little smile as the buck bent to nose the corn cobs on the ground in front of him. "Eight pointer, man."

He nodded and took a deep breath, looking down the sights of the rifle at the buck. Earlier Blake had given him a long explanation of where to aim on the deer and he aimed the cross hairs at the deer's chest. He'd been reassured that the deer wouldn't suffer long, only a couple of seconds for a heart shot, and he had lived a good life as God and nature intended before that moment. Unlike the pig they ate for breakfast. 

But when Adam's finger touched the trigger, he started thinking of something else. The animal was so beautiful, it felt almost wrong to take it's life when he had the money and transportation to go to Wal-Mart to buy food for himself. And then he started having flashbacks to a theater when he was six years old, watching the fawn scamper across the snowy cartoon scene crying for his mother. The mother who had been shot just moments before by hunters. 

Oh dear God, he was having a fucking BAMBI flashback. 

Adam took another deep breath and thought fast. He just couldn't kill the deer, but at the same time he didn't want to start a rift with Blake and make him feel like he was being judged for his love of hunting. They'd been honest about their feelings for each other for less than two months and things were going amazingly well. He wasn't really to jeopardize that for a hobby. But he also knew he just couldn't pull the trigger. 

Then an idea came to him and he shifted the rifle ever so slightly to the left, a trunk of a nearby tree coming into his sights now. Hopefully it wouldn't richocett off the tree, because he was going to feel like a real jerk if he accidentally shot Blake or himself. But he decided to throw caution to the wind and pulled the trigger.

The rifle bucked in his hands and Adam was surprised and a little embrrased that he fell backwards a little bit. He could hear a loud boom and a crack as the bullet hit what he presumed was the tree. When he steadied himself it was just in time to see the flash of white from the buck's tail as it galloped back into the woods. 

"Son of a bitch!" Blake turned to him, eyes wide. "You shot the fucking tree!" 

"Do I get to take a piece of it home to hang on the wall?" Adam smiled at Blake innocently. 

"I think that's about the only trophy that you're getting." He shook his head a little. "I guess shooting a deer with a rifle is pretty different than shooting a target with a hand gun."

About a half hour later, Blake decided they should go back in. He was mumbling something about not trusting Adam not to shoot himself or something along those lines as they walked back to the cart. Adam didn't mind letting Blake thing he was a crappy shot if it meant not having to shoot a deer to impress the Okie. He was reasonably sure that next time Blake got an urge to go hunting, he would be left back at home.

And that was just fine with him. 

*****

Overnight Adam made the failed hunting trip up to Blake, even though he didn't realize that was what was going on. It must have been a good enough consolation prize, though, because they both slept in late and went he woke up, Blake was beside him again. Rolling over on his stomach, he ran his fingers over the other man's back, sighing contently. Despite their differences, they did seem to really have something special together. 

"Mmmm..." Blake sighed contently under his touch. "I'm glad you're better in bed than you are at hunting." 

"You and me both, Big Country," Adam smirked a little. "Are we still going fishing?" 

"Time is it?" He yawned in return, making no effort to move. 

"Twelve-thirty." 

"Fish bite better at dusk." 

The snoring he heard a few seconds later told Adam he had thoroughly tired the country boy out the night before. He shifted to lay against the warmth of his friend's broad back and closed his eyes too. It was nice to just be lazy and enjoy a Friday in bed. They definitely earned it. 

By the time they did manage to get out of bed and eat something it was four o' clock in the afternoon. In fall that was a couple hours out from twilight, so it seemed that the timing was working out just fine. It was a beautiful day as they walked down to the little pond on Blake's property, fishing poles in hand. They sat down side by side on the little dock and Blake set the bucket of night crawlers between them. 

"Can you bait your own hook?" He asked Adam skeptically.

Adam rolled his hazel eyes all the way up to the blue sky above them. "Blake...of course I can bait my own hook."

Picking up a huge worm and holding it up for Blake to look at it, Adam made a big show of baiting his hook by himself. It wasn't like he'd never been fishing before, even city boys went on vacation or had relatives that lived in the country. Thankfully he'd had both of those experiences and he had half a clue how to fish. Though he was glad they'd brought the beer and sandwhiches down with them so it gave them something more to do than just sit there.

Blake cast his line out and then nodded in approval when Adam did the same. "You didn't even hit a tree."

"Oh shut up," Adam shook his head and reached for the cooler. "The fish don't care if we talk, right?"

"Not unless they've learned english." He shrugged and grabbed a beer, popping the top. "You know, I really appreciate you're willing to do shit like this to amuse me." 

Adam grinned and took a drink of his own beer. "Actually, fishing isn't so bad. We get to hang out, drink beer, eat, talk...and believe it or not, I do enjoy being outdoors. LA has a lot of outdoors all around it." 

"Not quite like this," Blake pointed out, then nodded. "But yeah...the hills are actually sort of pretty. And I like the beach." 

"Even if I can't convince you to take your shirt off?" He teased back with an affectionate smile. 

"At least I'm willing to take it off for you. No one else needs to see my moobs." 

Adam chuckled. "I think your moobs are cute. And you're not fat, just a bit stocky. I'm going to get you in trunks and nothing but trunks if it kills me." 

Blake considered this for a moment, taking another gulp of his beer. "Private beach and no way in hell I'm wearing a speedo. Or a thong."

"You're on." He started laughing, but stopped suddenly when he felt a tug on his line. "Hey...I've got something!"

"Well I'll be damned..." Blake looked impressed. "Reel 'er in, let's see what you got."

There was a little tingle of excitement as Adam reeled in his catch. It resisted a few times and he had a feeling it was going to be a big one. Maybe they could have it for dinner. That was a romantic notion, catching a fish and cooking it for dinner. He was sure Blake knew how to gut it and cook it, since he was useless in the kitchen except for making eggs. As he kept reeling it in, he saw a dark shape start rising underneath the water. 

"It's a big one!" Blake was obviously getting very excited too. 

With one final grunt of effort, Adam's catch broke the surface. He blinked in surprise when he saw what he'd reeled in and Blake started laughing so hard he was sure the other man was going to fall off the dock laughing. It would really serve him right to end up in the water. 

"That is the funniest looking fish I've ever seen!" He managed to say between hoots, clapping his hands. 

The fish was, in fact, an old and battered baseball glove.

"Gee, thanks." Adam pulled it over and took it off the hook, ready to toss it back in.

"No!" Blake grabbed his arm to stop him. "You need to shellack it and put in on a wooden plague. You know, for the wall. Right next to the piece of the tree you shot yesterday."

Then he was off laughing again and Adam had to admit it was pretty damn funny. They laughed until their sides hurt and they were wiping away tears. As they quieted down, he realized that he was so damn lucky to have the man in his life, and to be able to have something beyond friendship with him. Even if it meant proving how terrible he was at outdoors sports.

"I guess I really am just a city boy." He conceeded, shaking his head a little.

"Yeah," Blake wrapped his arm around Adam and pulled him in for a kiss. "But I love you just the way you are."


End file.
